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Plastics are a growing material component of vehicles, now representing 7.5% of a vehicle's weight, up from 0.6% in 1960. While 7.5% of a vehicle's weight may seem small, it represents 258 pounds of material per vehicle or 4.3 billion pounds per year in the United States alone. That is 4.3 billion pounds of plastics disposed primarily in landfills and incinerators. With the use of plastics in automobiles and auto production on the rise globally, plastic waste from discarded autos will continue to flood into landfills and incinerators across the earth.
The manufacture of plastics poses another set of environmental challenges. Made from non-renewable fossil fuels and toxic chemicals, the plastic products of today are both unsustainable and the source of toxic pollutants. For example, polyvinyl chloride (PVC), a very popular plastic in automobiles, is made from fossil fuels and chlorine, contains toxic additives like lead, organotins and phthatlates, creates dioxins, furans and hydrochloric acid when incinerated, and is extremely difficult to recyle.
Plastics do not need to be manufactured from nonrenewable fossil fuels and toxic chemicals. Back in the 1930s, Henry Ford produced an entire car body made from soybean-based plastics. Today, Toyota is developing plastics made from sugar cane and corn for use in its vehicles.
More information on the types of plastics automakers are using and automakers' progress towards switching to more sustainable plastics can be found in the Ecology Center's reports:
Download Report & Background Materials (pdf):